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Ridership
Ridership In public transport, patronage or ridership is a type of forecasting or statistic for studying the average quantity of passengers ("patrons") carried per certain time in a mode of public transit system. The concept should not be confused with the maximum loading capacity of one particular vehicle or the whole transit system. The gathered or predicted ridership data is usually referred by transport planner to align the route and decide what kind of vehicle will be employed. Passenger load factor Passenger load factor, or load factor, measures the capacity utilization of public transport services like airlines, passenger railways, and intercity bus services. It is generally used to assess how efficiently a transport provider fills seats and generates fare revenue. According to the International Air Transport Association, the worldwide load factor for the passenger airline industry during 2015 was 79.7%. Passenger load factor is an important parameter for the assessment of the performance of any transport system. Almost all transport systems have high fixed costs, and these costs can only be recovered through selling tickets. Airlines often calculate a load factor at which the airline will break even; this is called the break-even load factor. At a load factor lower than the break even level, the airline will lose money, and above will record a profit. The environmental performance of any transport mode improves as the load factor increases. The weight of passengers is normally a small part of the total weight of any transport vehicle, so increasing the number of passengers changes the emissions and fuel consumption to only a small degree. As a vehicle is more highly loaded, the fuel consumed per passenger drops, and fully loaded transport vehicles can be very fuel efficient. Very heavy loading of a transport vehicle are described as a crush load. Crush loading is a very high level of loading where passengers are crushed against one another. Commenting in May 2017 on the United Express Flight 3411 incident, in which a passenger was forcibly removed, investor Warren Buffett said that passenger demand for cheap flights was resulting in high load factors, resulting in "a fair amount of discomfort." Specifically, the load factor is the dimensionless ratio of passenger-kilometres travelled to seat-kilometres available. For example, say that on a particular day an airline makes 5 scheduled flights, each of which travels 200 kilometers and has 100 seats, and sells 60 tickets for each flight. To calculate its load factor: \frac{(5\ \text{flights})(200\ \text{km/flight})(60\ \text{passengers})}{(5\ \text{flights})(200\ \text{km/flight})(100\ \text{seats})} = \frac{60,000\ \text{passenger }\cdot\text{ km} }{100,000\ \text{seat }\cdot\text{ km}} = 0.6 = 60\% Thus, during that day the airline flew 60,000 passenger-kilometres and 100,000 seat-kilometres, for an overall load factor of 60% (0.6). Crush load A crush load is a level of passenger loading in a transport vehicle which is so high that passengers are "crushed" against one another. It represents an extreme form of passenger loading, and normally considered to be representative of a system with serious capacity limitations. Crush loads result from too many passengers within a vehicle designed for a much smaller number. Crush loaded trains or buses are so heavily loaded that for most passengers physical contact with several other nearby passengers is impossible to avoid. In the context of transport economics and planning, crush load refers to the maximum level of passenger load for a particular vehicle or rail carriage. Crush loads are calculated for the number of passengers per unit area, standing up. Crush loads are not an issue for passengers that are seated, as passengers will not normally sit on one another. Crush loads are most common on city buses and rail metro systems, where passenger loading is high, and most passengers stand. Airlines almost never have crush loads, nor do high speed and/or long-distance rail or long-distance bus routes, where all passengers are generally seated. Crush loads are normally measured using number of standing passengers per . Six passengers per square metre is often considered the practical limit on what can be accepted without serious discomfort to passengers. However, severe crush loads can be much in excess of this. In India, the term "super dense crush load" "Super-Dense Crushload" has been coined by railway officials to describe passenger loads on peak-hour trains operating on the Mumbai Suburban Railway when carriages built for 200 passengers carry over 500, translating to 14–16 people per square metre.Bellman, Eric (18 April 2007). "Super Dense Crush Load". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 8 February 2014. Effects Crush loads in transport vehicles can result in many secondary issues, such as petty theft and pickpocketing, extreme discomfort for passengers, sexual harassment, and an inability for passengers to board and alight vehicles in a timely manner. For a rail vehicle which has a crush load, passengers are touching and there is no space for another passenger to enter without causing serious discomfort to the passengers on board.Sacramento Regional Transit District. Glossary of Transit Terms. Retrieved 8 February 2014. According to Hoel et al. in Transportation Infrastructure Engineering, operating at crush load increases dwell time (the length of time the transport vehicle remains in the station or stop) and reduces overall vehicle capacity per unit of time.Hoel, Lester; Garber, Nicholas; Sadek, Adel (2010). [https://books.google.com/books?id=QkbGpZngUWwC&pg=PA177 Transportation Infrastructure Engineering: A Multimodal Integration, SI Version], p. 177. Cengage Learning. Large dense concentrations of passengers can create dangerous conditions, both within transit vehicles and at overcrowded stations. In 2014, a news service in Mumbai, India reported several serious platform gap mutilation incidents and a death within a few months, mostly attributed to crowded conditions. References External links * PLF (Passenger Load Factor) Category:Transportation planning Category:Public transport